


Self-Improvement

by ChasingAfterMidnight



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Eating Disorders, Excessive Exercise, Gen, Hurt Peter, Introspection, Self-Harm, trigger warnings apply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 17:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8632810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasingAfterMidnight/pseuds/ChasingAfterMidnight
Summary: Peter needs to be faster. He needs to be better. He's too slow, too heavy, too much.The one where Peter cycles through various unhealthy self-harm methods and is generally a mess. Trigger warning for self-harm, eating disorders (albeit somewhat unintentional) and over-exercise as a way of self-harm.





	

So, Peter was pretty fast. That was kind of his whole deal, if he was being perfectly honest, but sometimes he was still too slow; he was too slow to save Scott’s brother, too slow in fighting Apocalypse, and he needed to be faster.

That was why a soaking wet speedster could be found (as a silver blur most of the time) running around the lake, and then promptly falling in it. According to him, the best way to test his speed and let him know definitively whether or not he was faster was to run on water. Or at least, try to run on water…

He’d been at it for hours in real time now, and he could feel the sun starting to set and the wind getting colder on his already soaked clothes. Even as he was shivering, he kept running, warming up by running a few dozen laps around the lake, and then slowly but surely changing direction to run on the water.

As he ran his laps, he felt a slight burning begin in his lungs and chest, and his legs started to ache as he pumped them. He really had been out here for ages, longer than he should be, if he was being honest with himself. But, that part of his mind sounded too much like Hank, so he promptly ignored it. He wasn’t stopping now; he had to do this. So, with a burst of speed, he launched himself onto the lake, hoping to skip across the surface.

Granted, it worked for a second or two. Then, the strain he had put on his body started to catch up with him, causing him to get a cramp in his leg. He let out a grunt and toppled into the water, barely keeping afloat. He sucked in a few precious mouthfuls of air before his body became too slack to keep him above the surface. He flailed his arms but they too grew as heavy as lead.

As he struggled, he was dimly aware of his body sinking, and just how tired he was. He could just close his eyes, just for a second… He let his body sink to the bottom of the lake.

\---

He wasn’t found until somebody noticed his absence at dinner, his accelerated healing being the only thing keeping him alive at that point. When he regained consciousness, Peter knew things had to change. He had to be better, and not be so obvious about it.

\---

Once he’d got some attention from his recent training regime, he was pretty much constantly being watched by someone when he was running. And, as it happened, that someone was usually Hank. Surely, surely, the guy would have something to do in his lab but, oh no, he got stuck watching Peter. More annoyingly, he got the job of letting Charles know when Peter was “over-exerting himself and pushing himself too hard”, which Hank thought was all the time, resulting in a lecture from the world’s biggest puppy-eyes holder, ready to make Peter feel awful for disappointing him.

So, Peter had to get better at improving himself silently, so nobody could find out. He needed to be in perfect shape to be faster, and if he couldn’t run to shed fat and quicker, then he wouldn’t even eat the fatty foods to begin with. It was all pretty simple.

It started easy; choosing to ignore the packs of Twinkies and Ding Dongs and all other kinds of snacks he’d usually be guzzling down. Instead, he’d zip to his room under the guise of doing something important that can’t wait a single second.

While he was at it, he stopped coming to communal meals, too. Too many people to see exactly what he’s eating, and how much, and too many people that can notice something isn’t right and run to tell the Professor.

On the other hand, he knew people might become suspicious if nobody saw him eat at all, so on the rare occasion he did eat, he made sure it was in the presence of a couple of people. That way, if anyone questioned how much he was eating, he had witnesses to prove the opposite.

Eventually, the habit stuck. Peter was so used to filling his whole day with activities to distract him from eating that he genuinely forgot he was trying to do it in the first place. He’d just skip meals because he was busy doing other things. For curiosity’s sake, he’d measure himself with the bathroom scales every now and then, and noticed a slow but sure decrease in his weight. Not anything drastic, but certainly an improvement.

Within a few weeks of doing this, Peter noticed some more things about his body were changing. First of all, he had less energy and was constantly tired, but he was pretty good at hiding it. What was harder to hide was the light-headedness he felt when he stood up. He’d have to take it slow, getting up in stages rather than all at once. Either that, or he’d zip to his room or a secluded area before it could properly kick in, which led to him almost passing out a couple times. That was fine, though, if it was the cost of being better.

He’d also noticed the mood changes. Whereas he always used to be carefree and laid-back, now it was an effort to keep up that persona. It was so much easier to fall into the blank apathy that waited for him most days. He was quicker to anger, became easier to cry, and let insults get to him more than ever before. He’d usually be able to shrug off comments about how fucked his hair is, or how annoyingly energetic he can be, but for whatever reason, the words cut him deeper than before. Slowly, he felt himself succumbing to the apathetic view of the world.

It was months after the Apocalypse incident, and the X-Men training was in full force. Well, he says that, but Peter never usually showed up – he claimed it was too boring, which it was, and when Mystique told Charles about it, they threatened him with not being on the team if he didn’t attend the training sessions. It’s not his fault everyone was so slow and he could literally run laps around them, when he even cared enough to do so. These days, it was an effort just to make small talk with the other mutants.

That being said, Peter had been using his power less recently. Since he started watching what he ate, his speed just tired him out faster. Regardless, Peter went to the next training session, purely to keep his place on the team and not have to stay at home while they were out doing interesting missions without him. He had to attach himself to the only marginally interesting thing that happened at this place.

During one session, however, Peter realised how much he’d been pushing himself. He didn’t really remember much of that particular training session, if he’s being perfectly honest. He remembers being in a scenario where he had to use his powers, but… then nothing. He was told later that he passed out, but nobody could figure out why, since it had never happened before, and as far as they could tell, nothing had changed about him. He’d just… collapsed.

After being checked out by Hank, the current resident Peter-watcher, who expressed some concern about the whole ordeal, mainly the fact that they didn’t know what caused it, but since his body was a one of a kind among the school, nobody knew how his body was meant to function, and Peter was let go again.

The only downside of the situation was that now, Peter wasn’t faster. He could barely use his powers. Sure, it was satisfying as hell feeling the pangs of hunger and ignoring them, and it felt so good having the self-control to skip his meals and watch his body change and the scale go down, but that meant that using his powers tired him out almost immediately after using them. The downside of that, obviously, is he wasn't faster. He wasn’t even… anything. Hell, he was barely a mutant. He needed to be useful.

So Peter needed to reassess his method again. He couldn’t train too much, he couldn’t stop eating, but he had to do something to be better. He needed to be the best version of himself so he could save people and use his powers to actually do something useful and matter.

\---

Peter only tried cutting once. He was young, barely a teenager, and he wanted a way to silence his head that constantly echoed that of the kids at school. There was always something wrong with him. His hair, his restlessness, his speed, his short attention span, his personality. So, Peter took it into his own hands.

That was how he found himself his room with a blade in his right hand. He toyed with it for a moment before taking action. Being as young as he was, he was scared of the pain, so he went slowly. Too slowly, as it turns out, as his accelerated healing was mending his cut skin before the cut was even finished. He tried to will himself to go faster to compete with it, but he was too much of a coward to cut deep or fast. That was a habit that never had the chance to develop.

Now, years later, Peter was in his room at the mansion, his door firmly locked. He knew he couldn't control his training or his weight and eating habits, because they were external things that could be seen. So, for Peter to get some control over himself again, and not make himself useless again, he decided to fall back into his old, short lived behaviours. Except this time, he wouldn't use a blade. He'd use his nails, and speed up his finger scratching at his hip to get a cut that doesn't hurt as much, and doesn’t bleed as easily. Plus, nobody would be seeing his hips any time soon, so Peter figured he was okay. It would just cause pain and scars, no blood that needs to be cleaned and no tools that can be discovered.

And he was okay, for a while. The newly made scratches always stuck to his pants when they were healing, which wasn’t fun to deal with, but as far as anyone was concerned (ha, as if anyone would be concerned with him), he was normal. And, as the numbers on the scale went up, and he seemed normal externally, people stopped worrying about him.

He was fine. He wasn’t going to let this go too far.

It was a lie he was projecting to everyone, even himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this ended happily, like Erik rocked up to the mansion and was like "hey, what's up with this weird kinda metal-feeling thing being all displaced around this kid?" and checking it out, turns out he can feel the metallic elements in Peter's blood from where he's bled, and he gets Charles, and they all become a big happy family, the end. Then I decided that I wanted an ending that reflected more of what the original fic was inspired by, and more realistic elements. Fairy tale endings are good and all, but I haven't had one yet.


End file.
